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Zradha Pahlavans (Parthian Cataphracts)
|-|EB1= |-|EB2= EB1: These horsemen are well disciplined and heavily armoured. Feared by almost any foe, they can be relied in any battle to deliver the crushing blow that will bring victory. EB2: Covered with the best and most powerful armor known to man, and wielding heavy lances and maces, the Cataphract cavalry is the ultimate shock troop, specializing in crushing enemy formations in a thunderous charge. May the thundering of hooves and rattle of arms bring terror and despair to even the most stout-hearted of foes! Description The heavy Cataphract cavalry provides the hammer which forces infantry to stand their formations, providing the horse archers with the perfect target. If the enemy should break ranks the shock tactics employed by the Parthians on their armoured mounts were lightning quick and brutally efficient. These are the men that in Parthian armies were expected to deliver the crushing blow that brought victory. The arms they wield are the lance for shock action and the heavy mace to bludgeon armoured opponents. They are superbly equipped with a conical helm and attached scale aventail. A corselet of iron scale armour would protect the torso and laminated (banded) arm guards would emerge from the shoulder, completely encasing the arms down to the wrist. Thigh guards and leg defenses of banded armour would be attached to quilted cuisses secured to the belt with leather thongs. Historically, a Cataphract charge was generally less impetuous than the charges of the feudal knights of Western Europe, but very effective due to the discipline and the concentrated mass of troops deployed. Any army consistently faced with the light horse tactics used by the steppe peoples tended to adopt a very cautious approach to battle. Pahlavân-î Zrêhbârân means armoured heroes, and the cataphracts were at Carrhae and in every Parthian army recorded victory. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May the thundering of hooves and rattle of arms bring terror and despair to even the most stout-hearted of foes, for the Cataphracts have joined the battle! Covered with the best and most powerful armour known to man, and wielding heavy lances and maces, the Cataphract cavalry is the ultimate shock troop, specializing in crushing enemy formations in a thunderous charge. This troop is only made out of wealthy men from the noble class and their closest retinue, as only they would be able to afford the expensive high quality armour, and maintain the strong Nisean steeds able to carry such loads. As such, these men are professional warriors, well trained and used to the horrors of the battle field. They can thus be counted upon to break all but the most powerful infantry formations with their charge, and their armour as well as their spirits makes them well able to hold out in any melee against infantry and cavalry alike, until the enemy has been vanquished, or they have all fallen on the field of valour. Many of them being of noble birth, the men of the Cataphract corps wear only the best clothes, often dyed with expensive dyes and in intricate patterns. Little of this clothing can be seen when they go to war, though, as their entire bodies are covered in heavy armour fashioned out of iron and bronze. Many of them wear helmets of the so called Spangenhelm variety, a segmented helmet consisting of pieces of metal that have been riveted together and reinforced. Some, however, are of a domed type of solid metal without riveting. Many of the helmets also have aventails or neck protectors made of scale armour. As they carry no shields, their arms are protected by cheires, a kind of armour consisting of metal bands around the arm. The bands are shaped into rings, which are then linked to each other in such a way that the arm, although limited in mobility, can bend up and down to handle weapons and the reins of the horse. Some of the warriors also wear such cheires around their leg. Otherwise, the armour mostly consists of the traditional scale armour, common among the men of Central Asia. The occasional muscled cuirass can also be seen, pointing to the influence Hellenic craftsmanship has had on the military equipment of the peoples of Central Asia. Some wear tabards of cloth or leather over their armour, which are either adorned with decorative patterns, or sometimes a device representing a specific nobleman or clan. They carry a long lance, known as a Kontos, for when they charge the enemy, but when they are caught in a melee, they switch to the more easily handled mace, which can crush metal and bone with equal ease. They ride strong horses of the Nisean breed, a muscular and fast horse that can carry even these men with all their armour. Some of the horses are in fact themselves covered with armour. Many wear full harnesses of leather or metal scale, making the horse almost as impregnable to enemy weapons as its master, while some wear more modest felt harnesses, or scale peytrals that provide some extra protection to the steed. Historically, the heaviest cavalry troops of the ancient world were the Cataphracts, from the Greek Kataphraktos, meaning "completely covered". The origin of this troop type is not wholly certain. Armoured cavalry appear already during the period of the Achaemenid Empire in Iran, and no doubt even earlier in Central Asia. It does indeed seem to have been among the nomadic tribes of the steppe that the kind of heavily armoured horsemen that would come to dominate Eurasian warfare for the next 1 500 years was originally conceived, in order to fulfil a crucial role in the battlefield tactics of equine nomads. The traditional tactics of steppe peoples when engaging infantry forces was to first engage them from a distance with arrows, forcing dense formations to loosen up. If the enemy advanced, the archers would retreat. Once the enemy was thus thrown into disarray, the heavy cavalry would charge with lances into the disorganised formation. If the enemy managed to regroup, the lancers would pull back and the process start over again. The archers could be equipped in ever which way, as long as they had a bow and arrows, but the heavy cavalry required heavier equipment. Especially so when put against the well organised armies of Hellenistic kingdoms. Out of this was born the need for the fully armoured heavy horseman, or Cataphract. Although Cataphract cavalry is known from the period to have been employed by many peoples of the steppes, such as the Sakas, Sauromatae and Yuezhi-Kushan, the most famous Cataphract corps is no doubt that of the Parthians, mainly due to its victory over the Romans under Crassus at Carrhae. The Parthian Cataphracts, due to their exposure to Hellenistic troops, was arguably also the most heavily armoured of the lot. In the description of the army of the Parthian commander Surenas' army at the battle of Carrhae, some mentions of the Cataphracts being armoured with Margianian steel has been taken to indicate that the army of Surenas had been recruited in eastern Iran, among the more nomadic groups that dwelt there. The fact that the army seemed to be primarily a cavalry force, in addition to the fact that the lands controlled by the Suren-Pahlavan clan, which most likely is what the "Surenas" refers to, were located in the eastern Parthian spheres, could possibly also hint to this fact. That would then further emphasise the steppe nomads as the original source of the Cataphract type cavalry. None the less, by the first century AD, many of the Parthian warrior statuettes recovered as far west as Mesopotamia and the Levant show Cataphract armour, which seems to indicate that by this time, Cataphracts were recruited from among the nobility of all the regions governed by the Arsakid Shahanshah. Some of the earliest depictions of a fully armoured Parthian Cataphract shows a warrior on a hunt, wearing a domed helmet, and a full scale armour, covering his entire body. Later depictions, with increasing frequency, Parthian reliefs and statues of warriors display cheires and lamellar armour, as well as some decorated tabards. Although belonging to a later date, the reliefs at Firuzabad, which depict the victory of the Sassanian ruler Ardashir (or Artaxerxes) over the last Parthian ruler Artabanos. The reliefs depict the Parthian Cataphracts wearing helmets with scale aventails, tabards over their bodies, and cheires covering both arms and legs. These cheires, or banded armours covering arms and legs, are in these reliefs depicted as covering the entire arm and leg. This would obviously severely restrict the mobility of the wearer's extremities, and hence many of these armours would likely only have covered the outside of the arm and front of the leg, while being open in the back. They may also have been separated at the knee and elbow, much like the scale armours of Scythian and Persian heavy cavalry, to enable higher mobility. All these armour types can be seen on these men. Usage The "hammer" of a Pahlava army, these cataphracts are able to unleash a devasting charge that is most damaging to any unlucky enemy unit and can change the tides of battle when used at the right time. They can also fight in melee with their armor-piercing maces that will enable them to stand against or defeat most cavalry units and heavy infantry. Their weakness is their slow speed and their lack of stamina due to wearing heavy armor, one must not have them waste their energy running around. Like all cavalry, phalanxes and spearmen are their weaknesses and slingers will be able to pick them off from afar. These men are only recruitable in a high MIC with the Nomadism Nomadic Government and the Parthian Reformed Government. Category:Units Category:Pahlava